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The bulletin of Atlanta University, 1893 no. 42

The bulletin of Atlanta University

NUMBER 42. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. JANUARY, 1893. Atlanta University, A tlanta, Ga. Has 600 students in College, Normal College preparatory, Grammar, and Primary departments, under 30 officers and teachers. Trains teachers and leaders of their race from among the sons and daughters of the Freedmen of the South. Gives industrial training in wood-work, iron-work, mechanical drawing, printing, farming, cooking, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, laundry-work, and nursing the sick. Has sent out 235 graduates from College and Normal courses, nearly all of whom, together with hundred's of past under-graduates, are. engaged in teaching and other useful work in Georgia and surrounding states. Owns four large brick buildings, on seventy acres of land, one mile from the centre of Atlanta, Ga., library of 7,000 vols., apparatus and other equipment — all rallied at not less than a quarter of a million dollars. Having no endowment (except about 33,000, mostly for special objects), the Institution requires at least $25,000 a year in donations from its friends to continue the work now in hand, and a fund of about $500,000 to put that work on a permanent basis. Annual scholarships of $40 each are asked for to provide for the tuition of one student for one year. Subscriptions of $100 and upwards are solicited for general current expenses. Legacies for endowment or for current expenses are greatly desired. Remittances of donations or inquiries for further information may be addressed to Pres. Horace Bumstead, D. D. Atlanta, Ga. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on ; If a blinder soul there be, Let me guide him nearer Thee. J. G. Whittier. A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich ; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. E. B. Browning. Whatever in the world I am, In whatsoe'er estate, I have a fellowship with hearts, To keep and cultivate. And a work of lowly love to do For the Lord on whom I wait. A. L, Waring. UNCLE REMUS'S LAST BOOK. Atlanta is proud of Uncle Remus, and justly so. In all the newer literature of the South, no figure stands out more conspicuous than he. Not only has he interested the children with his stories of Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit, The Tar Baby, and all the rest, but he has opened a rich field of investigation for the students of folklore. His new book, "Uncle Remus and His Friends," will be welcomed by all. The following passage from the introduction tells the way in which many of the stories were collected : "There has been an understanding that the younger members of the household, possessing the knack that nature gives to youth, were to employ all their arts in discovering a new story, or to verify one already in hand. A plan was finally hit upon to give the children a cue word or phrase from a story that needed verification, or from an interesting fragment that lacked completion. In one instance this plan had a singularly fertile result. The cook had a son-in-law named John Holder, who had shown a tendency to indulge in story telling in his hours of ease. This was in 1886. Mr. Richard Adams Learned, of Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, had sent me a story about the man who, with his two dogs, harassed the cattle. One of the youngsters was told to ask about this story and his cue was ' a man, two dogs, and the wild cattle,' but the child's memory was short. He asked about a boy and two dogs, and the result was the story of ' The Little Boy and His Dogs,' to be found in the supplementary part of 'Daddy Jake, the Runaway.' Some months afterwards the child remembered the wild cattle, and got the story from Holder substantially as it had been sent to me by Mr. Learned. The variations are not worth taking into account. I have referred to this matter because it has been made interesting by an article which Mr. David Dwight Wells contributed to the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1892. Mr. Wells embodies the wild cattle story, which differs in no essential particular from the version sent me by Mr. Learned. Mr. Wells had the story from a gentlemen who was born about the beginning of this century in Essequibo, British Guiana, South America. The story was told to Mr. Learned by his grandfather (born in 1802), who had it from his old mammy nurse in Damarara. The Georgia negro had the story pat, and out of it grew the tale of ' The Bull That Went A-Court-ing,' which the wild cattle story seems to be the sequel to. Thus we have a series that ought to be of some interest to the students of folklore." Many of Mr Harris's readers will be inclined to regard him as too modest in the following reference to the introduction to a former volume of his : " But the folklore branch of the subject I gladly leave to those who think they know something about it. My own utter ignorance I confess without a pang. To know that you are ignorant is a valuable form of knowledge, and I am gradually accumulating a vast store of it. In the light of this knowledge the enterprising inconsequence of the introduction to 'Nights With Uncle Remus' is worth noting on account of its unconscious and harmless humor. I knew a good deal more about folklore then than I do now. . . . Since that introduction I have gone far enough into the subject to discover that at the end of investigation and discussion speculation stands grinning." It is with regret that we read the following words of farewell which Mr. Har-ris has spoken for Uncle Remus, and we cannot help hoping it is only in the nat-ture of an " au revoir." "It is not an easy or a pleasing ceremony to step from behind the curtain, pretending to smile and say a brief good-bye for Uncle Remus to those who have been so free with their friendly applause. No doubt there is small excuse for such a leave-taking in literature. But there is no pretense that the old darkey's poor little stories are in the nat-ture of literature, or that their retelling touches literary art at any point. All the accessories are lacking. There is nothing here but an old negro man, a little boy, and a dull reporter, the matter of discourse being fantasies as uncouth as the original man ever conceived of. Therefore let-Uncle Remus's good-bye be as simple as his stories ; a swift gesture that might be mistaken for a salutation as he takes his place among the affable ghosts that throng the ample corridors of the temple of dreams. He has been a lifelong friend to us of a younger generation —one of the characters of the nursery, who has accompanied us into a broader world unchanged. He has become a typical representation of the slavery time negro, the embodiment of the virtues and petty faults, the kindly heart and simple-minded ways of a class which is now well nigh vanished. A newer race has supplanted him, and he will soon be only a tradition in the land where he once was, next to his master, king. But he will live as Uncle Remus long after the last familiar figure of the class he represents is gone from among us, and will be beloved

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NUMBER 42. ATLANTA, GEORGIA. JANUARY, 1893. Atlanta University, A tlanta, Ga. Has 600 students in College, Normal College preparatory, Grammar, and Primary departments, under 30 officers and teachers. Trains teachers and leaders of their race from among the sons and daughters of the Freedmen of the South. Gives industrial training in wood-work, iron-work, mechanical drawing, printing, farming, cooking, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, laundry-work, and nursing the sick. Has sent out 235 graduates from College and Normal courses, nearly all of whom, together with hundred's of past under-graduates, are. engaged in teaching and other useful work in Georgia and surrounding states. Owns four large brick buildings, on seventy acres of land, one mile from the centre of Atlanta, Ga., library of 7,000 vols., apparatus and other equipment — all rallied at not less than a quarter of a million dollars. Having no endowment (except about 33,000, mostly for special objects), the Institution requires at least $25,000 a year in donations from its friends to continue the work now in hand, and a fund of about $500,000 to put that work on a permanent basis. Annual scholarships of $40 each are asked for to provide for the tuition of one student for one year. Subscriptions of $100 and upwards are solicited for general current expenses. Legacies for endowment or for current expenses are greatly desired. Remittances of donations or inquiries for further information may be addressed to Pres. Horace Bumstead, D. D. Atlanta, Ga. If there be some weaker one, Give me strength to help him on ; If a blinder soul there be, Let me guide him nearer Thee. J. G. Whittier. A child's kiss Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad ; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich ; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. E. B. Browning. Whatever in the world I am, In whatsoe'er estate, I have a fellowship with hearts, To keep and cultivate. And a work of lowly love to do For the Lord on whom I wait. A. L, Waring. UNCLE REMUS'S LAST BOOK. Atlanta is proud of Uncle Remus, and justly so. In all the newer literature of the South, no figure stands out more conspicuous than he. Not only has he interested the children with his stories of Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit, The Tar Baby, and all the rest, but he has opened a rich field of investigation for the students of folklore. His new book, "Uncle Remus and His Friends," will be welcomed by all. The following passage from the introduction tells the way in which many of the stories were collected : "There has been an understanding that the younger members of the household, possessing the knack that nature gives to youth, were to employ all their arts in discovering a new story, or to verify one already in hand. A plan was finally hit upon to give the children a cue word or phrase from a story that needed verification, or from an interesting fragment that lacked completion. In one instance this plan had a singularly fertile result. The cook had a son-in-law named John Holder, who had shown a tendency to indulge in story telling in his hours of ease. This was in 1886. Mr. Richard Adams Learned, of Newton, Sussex County, New Jersey, had sent me a story about the man who, with his two dogs, harassed the cattle. One of the youngsters was told to ask about this story and his cue was ' a man, two dogs, and the wild cattle,' but the child's memory was short. He asked about a boy and two dogs, and the result was the story of ' The Little Boy and His Dogs,' to be found in the supplementary part of 'Daddy Jake, the Runaway.' Some months afterwards the child remembered the wild cattle, and got the story from Holder substantially as it had been sent to me by Mr. Learned. The variations are not worth taking into account. I have referred to this matter because it has been made interesting by an article which Mr. David Dwight Wells contributed to the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1892. Mr. Wells embodies the wild cattle story, which differs in no essential particular from the version sent me by Mr. Learned. Mr. Wells had the story from a gentlemen who was born about the beginning of this century in Essequibo, British Guiana, South America. The story was told to Mr. Learned by his grandfather (born in 1802), who had it from his old mammy nurse in Damarara. The Georgia negro had the story pat, and out of it grew the tale of ' The Bull That Went A-Court-ing,' which the wild cattle story seems to be the sequel to. Thus we have a series that ought to be of some interest to the students of folklore." Many of Mr Harris's readers will be inclined to regard him as too modest in the following reference to the introduction to a former volume of his : " But the folklore branch of the subject I gladly leave to those who think they know something about it. My own utter ignorance I confess without a pang. To know that you are ignorant is a valuable form of knowledge, and I am gradually accumulating a vast store of it. In the light of this knowledge the enterprising inconsequence of the introduction to 'Nights With Uncle Remus' is worth noting on account of its unconscious and harmless humor. I knew a good deal more about folklore then than I do now. . . . Since that introduction I have gone far enough into the subject to discover that at the end of investigation and discussion speculation stands grinning." It is with regret that we read the following words of farewell which Mr. Har-ris has spoken for Uncle Remus, and we cannot help hoping it is only in the nat-ture of an " au revoir." "It is not an easy or a pleasing ceremony to step from behind the curtain, pretending to smile and say a brief good-bye for Uncle Remus to those who have been so free with their friendly applause. No doubt there is small excuse for such a leave-taking in literature. But there is no pretense that the old darkey's poor little stories are in the nat-ture of literature, or that their retelling touches literary art at any point. All the accessories are lacking. There is nothing here but an old negro man, a little boy, and a dull reporter, the matter of discourse being fantasies as uncouth as the original man ever conceived of. Therefore let-Uncle Remus's good-bye be as simple as his stories ; a swift gesture that might be mistaken for a salutation as he takes his place among the affable ghosts that throng the ample corridors of the temple of dreams. He has been a lifelong friend to us of a younger generation —one of the characters of the nursery, who has accompanied us into a broader world unchanged. He has become a typical representation of the slavery time negro, the embodiment of the virtues and petty faults, the kindly heart and simple-minded ways of a class which is now well nigh vanished. A newer race has supplanted him, and he will soon be only a tradition in the land where he once was, next to his master, king. But he will live as Uncle Remus long after the last familiar figure of the class he represents is gone from among us, and will be beloved